Suppose you see someone who has eaten camel meat, has not performed ablution, and then stands to pray while not believing that ablution after eating camel meat is obligatory. Do you denounce him?
The answer is: no. But would you pray with him?
The answer is: yes. This is an acknowledgment, not a denunciation.
What, then, is the difference between omitting an obligation and committing a prohibited act?
The answer is: there is no difference. However, people of dignity should not sit with those who smoke tobacco, even if they believe it to be lawful, because this is undignified. In my view, the scholars who consider it lawful do not regard it as conduct befitting people of dignity. For example, we consider eating sunflower seeds permissible; yet if a teacher came to teach his students carrying a bag of sunflower seeds from which he continually took and ate, this would be considered contrary to proper dignity, even though it is not unlawful. A person must have proper manners.
It may therefore be understood from the words of the jurists—may Allah have mercy on them—in this matter that if someone considers something lawful, even if he is a disbeliever, he is not bound by the Islamic ruling concerning it. If this applies in the case of disbelievers, then it applies all the more to Muslims regarding matters they have adopted on the basis of a valid interpretation. But as for one who obstinately opposes the ruling—for example, a Muslim who eats pork and says, “I believe it to be lawful”—we do not approve of this, because its prohibition is unanimously agreed upon. No one can declare pork lawful on any grounds whatsoever. There is a difference between this case and the other.
“And they must distinguish themselves from the Muslims. They may ride animals other than horses without saddles, using pack-saddles …”
His statement, “and they must”: the pronoun is the direct object and refers to the protected non-Muslim subjects.
His statement, “distinguish themselves from the Muslims”: that is, they must be distinct from Muslims both in life and in death.
As for death, their graves must be separate; they are not buried together with